Menino to appoint Peter Meade director of BRA

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budman3

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I don't believe this has been posted elsewhere. Not surprised in the least.


Menino to appoint Peter Meade director of BRA
By Casey Ross, Globe Staff

Peter Meade, a longtime Democratic operative and former executive for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, will be named director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority tomorrow by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, according to a person with knowledge of the announcement.

Meade will replace current director John Palmieri, who recently announced he will step down in May.

Over the years, Meade has developed a close relationship with Menino, who is deeply involved in development issues reviewed by the BRA.

His appointment comes as the city struggles to recover from a sharp real estate downturn that has delayed many of its largest developments, including several projects on the South Boston waterfront and the redevelopment of the former Filene's property in Downtown Crossing.

Meade does not have deep experience as a real estate professional, but is a well-known civic leader in Boston and has worked in and around city and state politics for decades. In the 1970s, he occupied several posts in the administration of former Mayor Kevin White, including serving as public safety coordinator during the unrest that followed the court-mandated desegregation of Boston schools.

He also worked for 12 years as executive vice president of Blue Cross Blue Shield and as managing director of Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications, a Boston public relations firm.

A longtime player in the Kennedy family, Meade has more recently served as chair of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy and as head of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
 
I'm dying to hear some thoughts on this.

I have a column due for Patch tomorrow and this might make a good and timely topic.

I don't know this guy other than from his "work" on the Greenway. I always think they're talking about Peter Mehegan from Channel 5.

My first thought was that this was a "placemaker" person, someone to spend the next two years in the spot, with the assumption that the Mayor couldn't find someone who has the right development background because he's going to soon be a "lame duck" (yes, that he won't run again).

If not, then why not have an actual search and hire someone who can be here for the foreseeable future?
 
The Globe said:
Meade does not have deep experience as a real estate professional, but is a well-known civic leader in Boston and has worked in and around city and state politics for decades.
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Swell...A well-connected novice.

The Globe said:
In the 1970s, he occupied several posts in the administration of former Mayor Kevin White, including serving as public safety coordinator during the unrest that followed the court-mandated desegregation of Boston schools.
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Nice work, Pete.

The Globe said:
A longtime player in the Kennedy family, Meade has more recently served as chair of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy...
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If that isn't a mark of quality, I don't know what is.

FAIL.
 
I remember him as a WBZ talk radio host in the 1980s, the liberal counterpoint to conservative David Brudnoy.
 
Wow, its like Menino isn't even trying anymore.
 
Unbelievable. Little background experience in real estate, cozy connection to the mayor, the perfect yes man for the mayor.

John, how many years of real estate experience do you have? You're probably a more competent choice than Meade.
 
^^ah, but John doesn't have years of experience dealing with Boston politics. Everybody knows the BRA is more political than a planning institution. Are you really that surprised this guy was chosen?
 
So someone with no real experience in architecture, planning, development, or real estate is now going to head the agency responsible for overseeing architecture, planning, development, and real estate...brilliant!

Being a career hack sucking off the public teat for most of one's dubious career is just the icing on the cake.
 
It's probably some political favour that Menino owes. Let the guy sit in for the next couple of years til the next election and Meade gets a comfy pension. I mean, it's not like anything is going to get built over the next two and a half years.
 
armpitsOFmight said:
^^ah, but John doesn't have years of experience dealing with Boston politics. Everybody knows the BRA is more political than a planning institution. Are you really that surprised this guy was chosen?
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Of course I'm not surprised. This is obviously a political gesture. If the mayor wants a gesture, this is the only one I can think of giving to him because this is exactly what the mayor is giving to the rest of the city.

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Mods can take this down if they feel that it's inappropriate.
 
I don't know what the director does all day, so who can say if you need a background in development?

But, seriously, compare the two resumes. Here's John Palmieri's. He spent 18 years doing redevelopment in Rhode Island. That's just one of his previous jobs.

Comparing Meade to him is not flattering.


A man who can 'get things done'
Boston's mayor turns to a seasoned development professional with a 3-city resume to run BRA
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | September 20, 2007

John F. Palmieri spent 18 years helping to rebuild downtown Providence, two years in North Carolina fashioning an economic development office for Charlotte, and almost four years in blighted Hartford, trying to raise homeownership levels from a critically low 20 percent.

Now he'll head the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the powerful city agency on the ninth floor of City Hall that combines planning, economic development, and approval functions.

Palmieri will face many of the same issues here, only on a larger scale: creating more affordable housing in an expensive city, overseeing an office market on the verge of a boom, and dealing with impatient developers and neighborhood groups with conflicting agendas.

Through it all, he'll be expected to please a mayor known to want things done his way.

He'll also have to guide Harvard University's new campus into an Allston neighborhood nervous about being overrun, weigh in on whether downtown Boston should welcome bigger skyscrapers, such as the proposed 1,000-foot tower at Winthrop Square, and help determine if city government should abandon a much-criticized building downtown for the emerging South Boston Waterfront district.

Can he do it?

"I don't think there's any question he can," said Paul L. Barrett, Boston development director in the early 1990s and now regional director for the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust. Barrett was Rhode Island's state economic development director when Palmieri was head of planning in Providence, and they worked together to create a $400 million development on 30 unused acres, the Providence Mall, which opened in 1997.

"He's got a great personality for this job," Barrett said. "He's someone who's always been willing to learn and listen. That's his number one talent."

Timothy P. Kirwan, general manager of the InterContinental Boston Hotel and formerly at the Westin Providence Hotel, was chairman of the board of the convention and visitors bureau in that city in the 1990s. He worked with Palmieri on several urban improvements, including enlivening downtown Providence with WaterFire, a high-profile, ongoing show of installation art and music.

"You meet a lot of guys in the public sector, but it was always Palmieri who got it done," Kirwan said yesterday. "He had all the sensibilities to work with the private sector. He was the key guy in the administration in the city."

Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he picked Palmieri because of his "experience, his ability to get things done."

"He's a creative implementer and a respected, able manager," Menino said. "He's the right guy for the time." Development on the South Boston Waterfront and Harvard's expansion to Allston will be top priorities, Menino said.

But Menino also said he expects Palmieri to closely examine the BRA itself, which comes under periodic criticism for its potentially conflicting missions: planning the city's future, spurring the economy, and approving proposed development projects.

"I want him to look at the BRA and make sure the functions are there today that are necessary, and how we can work together to deliver product much quicker than we have in the past," Menino said. He said the BRA has "a great staff" but that Palmieri is "going to have to hire a couple of people."

Palmieri, 56, called coming to Boston "a consummate opportunity to perfect the kind of work I do in a world-class city."

"I've got to take a hard look at aligning the planning function with redevelopment," he said yesterday. "I know that's been expressed as a concern."

Palmieri said he understands politics can be played hard in Boston, but, "I spent 18 years in Providence; that's a good start. I like to think I have the skill sets to respond to the mayor's directives and objectives," Palmieri said. "I'm comfortable doing this kind of work."

Barrett agreed, and said he thought Palmieri could survive working for Menino, who has scrapped with BRA directors who had, or appeared publicly to have, their own agendas.

"He worked for Buddy Cianci," said Barrett, referring to the pugnacious former Providence mayor who recently completed a five-year prison term for racketeering conspiracy. "Mayors by nature of who they are are not shrinking violets. He's the ideal personality. He's not a guy who looks for credit."

Palmieri graduated from Temple University in 1972 and earned a master's degree at the University of Rhode Island in 1976.

He is expected to start work in Boston on Nov. 12, replacing Mark Maloney, who resigned early this year.
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http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/09/20/a_man_who_can_get_things_done/
 
New stage for a seasoned performer
In pick of Meade for BRA, savvy counts the most

Mayor Thomas M. Menino promoted his choice of a longtime political player to head the city?s powerful planning agency yesterday, insisting that Peter Meade?s knowledge of Boston trumps his lack of professional planning experience, as the city struggles to reemerge from a development slump.

Meade is known as the insiders? insider, a top Kennedy family confidant. He has been a public relations man, a member of boards at the state?s highest reaches, a media personality, and a Zelig with a role in nearly every civic cause, including the financially troubled park above the Big Dig. Many of his political associations go back four decades, to the last time he officially served a Boston mayor, Kevin H. White, in the 1970s.

At 65, Meade strikes some as an unusual choice for a full-time job planning the city?s future development. Critics have long said the city needs a professional planner to lead the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which oversees changes to the city?s skyline, its historic neighborhoods, and its commercial districts.

Meade?s admirers, who include influential business and political players, say his political savvy and thick Rolodex will allow him to help carry out Menino?s vision. Meade will oversee the agency at a critical time, as the city emerges from a recession that has halted development and stifled attempts to revamp Downtown Crossing, Dudley Square, and other depressed areas.

?He?s a consummate person at making things happen in the city,?? said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, who served with Meade as a junior aide in the White administration. ?That?s kind of what you need to do at the BRA. You need to figure out how to move a development agenda where there are a lot of conflicting agendas involved.??

Meade, who will earn $164,640, was asked yesterday in an interview in the mayor?s office why he would return to City Hall after 34 years and as he nears retirement. But his new boss interrupted and answered the question for him.

?Me,?? Menino said.

Meade quickly backed the mayor. ?He?s right,?? Meade said. ?Tom and I talk about this city a lot. We talk about how much better this city is today than when we were kids growing up.?? In the end, Menino?s call to duty was persuasive.

BRA officials say Meade will not receive a traditional pension for his new job because he cashed out benefits from his seven-year tenure under Mayor White. He will instead receive a retirement plan similar to a 401k.

One of Meade?s most significant forays into the real estate world, his effort to establish the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in downtown Boston, has produced mixed results. The Greenway is a vast improvement over the old elevated highway that used to divide the city, but Meade and its other managers have not been able to generate enough funding to maintain its high-end fountains and lighting systems and make improvements to attract more visitors.

In February, Meade stepped down as chairman of the Greenway Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages the park system, saying it was time for him to move on after more than six years. But his new job as BRA director puts him back at the center of debate about its future.

Meade is sensitive to criticism of the Greenway. ?Somebody was once complaining to me about the Greenway, and I apologized for it and said, ?If you like, I could see what we could do to bring the highway back,? ?? Meade said.

Even those who say the Greenway has not yet fulfilled its promise are hesitant to blame Meade. Nancy Caruso, a North End activist, says there is a lot of work left to do on the Greenway, but Meade?s job was a tough one.

?People who are not involved in the inside of it don?t understand all of the personal vendettas involved among a whole strata of people,?? Caruso said. ?He went through all that and used his own good judgement. Frankly I?m going to pray for him in his new job that he doesn?t get mired in the minutiae of all the constituencies pulling him in different directions.??

Meade also recently left a post as president of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate after just 18 months on the job. At the time, he denied that there were tensions with Kennedy?s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy.

While the Greenway has remained nettlesome, Meade has been successful in other real estate pursuits. He has long served as chairman of the board of trustees at Emerson College, helping to guide the school?s effort to move its campus from Beacon Street to the Theatre District, revitalizing an area that had been languishing. (He said yesterday that he will resign from Emerson to avoid a conflict of interest.)

?People are going to fire rifle shots and say he doesn?t know real estate, but Peter was catalytic with the efforts at Emerson and he knows the neighborhoods really well,?? said Kevin Phelan, an executive of the real estate firm Colliers International who has known Meade for years. ?He has the trust and confidence of the mayor, and I think you?ll see a great sense of independence that Peter will have with this agency.??

That would be a dramatic shift from recent years when Menino has exercised significant control over decision-making at the agency.

?Things won?t change at the BRA until the mayor changes,?? said Sam Yoon, a former city councilor whose failed mayoral campaign featured a strong critique of the agency and Menino?s role.

Menino said Meade?s primary assets on the job will be his ability to work with younger planners on the BRA staff, while mixing with players in the development community.

?He can call any CEO in Boston, and they will pick up the phone,?? Menino said.

Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, would like Meade to infuse Downtown Crossing with new energy. Hurst, who clashed with Meade over health care costs when Meade worked as an executive for Blue Cross Blue Shield, said the BRA appointment took him by surprise.

?I think he brings a skill set that can help,?? Hurst said.

Andrew Ryan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com; Ross at cross@globe.com.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...ino_taps_meade_for_political_savvy/?page=full

From the response that Mr. Meade gave, I can say that he is an arrogant man and a suck up.

?Somebody was once complaining to me about the Greenway, and I apologized for it and said, ?If you like, I could see what we could do to bring the highway back,? ?? Meade said.
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That someone should have responded, "No, I would like if you could see what you could do to bring any improvement to the Greenway instead of snippy remarks."

And the exchanged between the interviewer and Menino and Meade is priceless.

"Me,?? Menino said.

Meade quickly backed the mayor. ?He?s right,?? Meade said. ?Tom and I talk about this city a lot. We talk about how much better this city is today than when we were kids growing up.?? In the end, Menino?s call to duty was persuasive.
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If that didn't scream "Menino clearly appointed a close friend instead of a competent planner and that Meade is his personal Yes man" with that response, then I don't know what it is.

Someone please write an article in the newspaper about the people's displeasure at the mayor's choice. For once the people's perception of this decision is near unified. For once the Boston.com comment voice the same opinion. I have a mind in contacting the writers of this article to write an article about our displeasure.
 
?Somebody was once complaining to me about the Greenway, and I apologized for it and said, ?If you like, I could see what we could do to bring the highway back,? ?? Meade said.
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I didn't realize it was gone. I still see 6 lanes.
 
KentXie said:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...ino_taps_meade_for_political_savvy/?page=full

From the response that Mr. Meade gave, I can say that he is an arrogant man and a suck up.



That someone should have responded, "No, I would like if you could see what you could do to bring any improvement to the Greenway instead of snippy remarks."

And the exchanged between the interviewer and Menino and Meade is priceless.



If that didn't scream "Menino clearly appointed a close friend instead of a competent planner and that Meade is his personal Yes man" with that response, then I don't know what it is.

Someone please write an article in the newspaper about the people's displeasure at the mayor's choice. For once the people's perception of this decision is near unified. For once the Boston.com comment voice the same opinion. I have a mind in contacting the writers of this article to write an article about our displeasure.
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Does it really matter at this point..... Meade looks like a disaster. I'm not sure on the guy's age but he might be over 65 years old. How much difference do you think this guy will make? The guy is old we need young energy, new innovation, somebody that actually cares about the future of the city. The BRA has become a political liablity for job growth in the city. It's becoming quite obvious after Filenes, Columbus, Congress And Harbor Garage developments. They obviously have no clue what they are doing.

I really cant believe the Construction Unions have not revolted against Menino. The taxpayers are taking up the ass in this city.

Meade won't last.
 
If he oversaw Emerson's move to the Theatre District, isn't that a pretty strong point in his favor?
 
Ron Newman said:
If he oversaw Emerson's move to the Theatre District, isn't that a pretty strong point in his favor?
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In Meade's defense I don't know the guy personally. Maybe he is a savvy real estate guru or whatever he does.

The reality of the situation Meade will not make a difference in this role. The BRA creditability is sinking real fast. Meade will not make a difference unless they are willing to give a little. I just don't see that. The Mayor and his cronies have been takers their whole entire career and that is why the City's skyline is not even relevant compared to the rest of the great cities in the world.


My bet is Palmeri left because he started seeing the light of being a puppet. After somebody posting Palmeri qualifications I was actually impressed. He actually had creditability to back up being the BRA chief in Boston.
 
Ron Newman said:
If he oversaw Emerson's move to the Theatre District, isn't that a pretty strong point in his favor?
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If he oversaw the RFKG, isn't that a pretty strong point against his favor?
 
Rifleman, I think the biggest issue I have with his lack of credentials is that the city is has weathered the recession really well. But we could slip. Approving smart construction right now is critical to employing more short and long term people in Boston.

Maybe because he's the Mayor's friend he'll have the balls to tell Menino when he's wrong. Maybe he'll override Menino's decision. I'm withholding judgement but am not optomistic. Even a year or two could set Boston back significantly.
 
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